


Family

by coffeeandchocolate



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-24 10:18:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1601297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandchocolate/pseuds/coffeeandchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel is gone. Tom is gone. Jake still has a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Continue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake still has cousins. The Animorphs were not the only ones that loved Rachel.

I stared at my cousin. She was three years younger than me and looked so much like Rachel had that looking at her kind of hurt.

“Three years,” she said, voice quavering slightly. With anger? Sadness? I couldn't tell. The emotions had always been close in Rachel. Maybe they were with Jordan, too. I didn't know. We had never really been close. “You were fighting for _three years_. Never once did you think to tell us?!”

Her blue eyes were intense. It almost reminded me of Tobias's stare, his anger after Rachel. “Rachel. Tom. Had you said something, they might have lived. I lost my _sister_ to this.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “It was my fault. Rachel and Tom died because of me.”

“And now you sit moping around, hardly going out or talking to anyone? You think Rachel would want that? Did you know her at _all_?” Jordan exploded. “She wouldn't want you to be unable to get over her death for the rest of your life. If she were around, she'd punch you in your stupid face.”

I blinked. Jordan sighed.

“Jake, you're my cousin,” she explained, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “I can be mad at you. I'm never going to forget that part of the reason I lost Rachel was because of you. But you're my cousin, so I can forgive you. I mean, she probably would have gone without you asking, right?”

I laughed hollowly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“So get your butt out of the house and go hang out with a friend or something. Apply to college. Just do something. Anything.”

I impulsively hugged her. She stiffened, then returned it.

“Hey,” she mumbled. I could hear the faint laughter in her voice. “Never knew you were such a sap, Jake.”

I let her go. “You're right.”

I knew she was. She hadn't told me anything unique. It wasn't like Marco and Cassie hadn't told me the same thing before. But this was coming from _Jordan_. Rachel's baby sister. One of the reasons that Rachel had joined the effort in the first place. A girl that looked and sounded exactly like Rachel had when we had first started fighting the fight.

How could I _not_ listen to her?

“I'll call you later, okay?” I asked her. “How about dinner on Saturday? You, me, and Sara?”

Jordan smiled at me. “Sounds like a plan.”


	2. Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Animorphs mourn together on the anniversary of the end of the war.

I got out of my car and walked over to the headstone. Rachel's headstone.

I visited her often. She wasn't buried there - she had been cremated years ago. But this was her memorial. This was the closest I could get to seeing my cousin.

Usually when I came, I didn't bring flowers or talk. But this wasn't a normal day. This was the anniversary of her death.

I sat down cross legged in front of the stone and laid down the bouquet I had brought. It was filled with all sorts of different flowers – daisies, hydrangeas, roses, orchids, and all sorts of other things I didn't even know the name of. There were other flowers at the grave, too. There always were. It was part of the reason that bringing them had always seemed pointless to me before.

“Hey, Rachel,” I said aloud. It felt strange, awkward. We had lost Rachel so many years ago and I had barely spoken about her out loud to anyone. Saying her name brought back a surge of emotion. I suddenly felt all the pain and guilt and misery full force. Those feelings never really went away.

I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. For most people, today wasn't a day of mourning. It was a day of celebration, the anniversary of the end of the war. To me, it would always be the anniversary of Rachel's death. The anniversary of the day that I, Jake Berenson, then just a sixteen year kid, made the call that I could never return from, never take back.

“Jordan told me something the other day,” I began. I stopped for a moment, unable to keep talking. “She said that it was time to move on. Move past the war, let people back in. I'm going to try. That's what you'd want, right?”

My voice was growing plaintive, begging for an answer. I closed my eyes. I'd have done anything to see Rachel's face again, hear her laugh, feel her punch me in the arm. Anything.

“I'm gonna go to college. Hang out with Jordan and Sarah. They miss you so much. Jordan looks so much like you now. It's unbelievable.”

I opened my eyes again. The setting sun cast an orange light over the headstone, reflecting off of the glass of the picture frame someone had left there. The picture was of Rachel at sixteen, a few months before her death. She was smiling a dazzling, confident smile. Her eyes were bright and bold, full of life.

“Rachel...I don't know if there's any point to talking to you. You're gone. But if there's any chance that you're hearing me, if there really is an afterlife...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Thank you so much, Rachel, for everything. You were amazing. You saved my life so many times, and I just let you die.”

I paused. “If you're out there, Rachel...look after Tobias. Please. He won't talk to me. He still hates me for what I did. I don't blame him. But he loved you so, so much. You were all he really had. No one ever loved him as much as you. He still misses you.”

“He doesn't hate you, Jake,” came a quiet voice from behind me. I whirled around, jumping to my feet.

Standing there were Cassie and Marco. Cassie held a book in her hands. Marco's were empty. I relaxed and turned back to the headstone.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Maybe.”

“You know what, Jake?” Marco said. “Shut up.”

“He doesn't,” Cassie insisted, her voice catching. “He's just hurting. Rachel meant everything to him. You know that. They loved each other so much. He can't get over her death. He can't. I loved Rachel too, but I have my family. I have my job. I have something that keeps me going every day. What does Tobias have? The only person he really has to talk to apart from me is Toby, and talking to her? It reminds him of Jara, another person who died for this war. Tobias knows Rachel would have gone, whether or not you told her to.”

And then a miracle happened.

Maybe  _miracle_ isn't the right word, but to me, right then, that was the only thing that fit. Maybe Rachel really was watching over all of us.

Tobias emerged from behind a tree, in human morph. His eyes were sad. But he approached us, and, to my shock, hugged me.

I returned the hug, and suddenly found tears streaming down my face.

“I'm sorry,” I choked. “I'm so sorry.”

“I know,” he replied. He let me go and took a step back. Cassie threw her arms around him tightly. He hugged her back. Marco and I moved closer to them, joining the hug.

“I love you all,” Cassie said. When we all broke apart, she sat on the ground and opened the book she held. She gestured for us to sit around her. “I have all the best pictures here.”

And she did. She had pictures of me and Rachel as babies that made Marco laugh and me blush. There were pictures of Rachel and Cassie, me and Marco, as little kids. Then some with all four of us together as we got older. We looked happy. To my surprise, Tobias popped up in a few with Rachel. I guess she had known him better than I realized back then.

“Hey,” Marco said suddenly, pointing at one of the pictures. “Look.”

We looked where he pointed. It was a picture of Rachel, laughing with her arm around Cassie. They looked around thirteen or fourteen, like we had only recently begun fighting Yeerks when the picture had been taken. It took me a second to grasp what Marco thought was special about the picture. Then it dawned on me.

Cassie was wearing jeans and a T-shirt in the picture. But Rachel was clad in her morphing suit. Except that wasn't it at all, was it? Rachel wasn't wearing her morphing suit. She was wearing a black leotard at a gymnastics competition.

I glanced over at Tobias. He was staring at the picture in awe. 

This was the girl he loved. The girl who never seemed affected by her surroundings. The one as comfortable fighting a war as doing gymnastics. The one who could go from one to the other in the blink of an eye, without even needing to change. And still look  _happy._

“Do you have copies of this?” Tobias asked Cassie. Cassie nodded quickly. Tobias slid the photo out of the protective plastic cover and placed it on top of the headstone. He nodded at the picture in the frame. “That's a good one. I like this better.”

A few hours later, we left. Together. Tobias was back in hawk form, soaring effortlessly above us.

Rachel was gone. We would never have her back. But at least we had each other now. That was enough for me.

 


	3. Ghosts

“Hi, sweetie,” Dad said, and I had to look away.

Rachel had always been Dad's favourite. Always. Yeah, he loved me and Sara. But neither of us were Rachel.

Rachel had always been the golden girl. Smart and talented and beautiful and popular. There was nothing she couldn't do. When I was little, she had seemed like some kind of superhero to me. Like Buffy. Part of me had been jealous – middle child syndrome, I guess. Every time I had been proud of something I had accomplished, Rachel had come in with something better, more impressive. Not to mention, everything I did, she had already done.

But Rachel was dead, and I was still here.

Now, more than ever, that's who I was – the little sister. Rachel was a legend. A hero. Rachel the Animorph, Rachel the Warrior.

But all I could remember now was Rachel the Sister, and all Mom and Dad could remember was Rachel the Daughter, and no one could understand that. No one could understand that the girl I had known wasn't some kind of hero. She was the girl that kept leftover takeout in the fridge for a week and yelled at me when I threw it out, the girl with an impeccable fashion sense, the headstrong wannabe gymnast, the closet Trekkie. She was my sister.

Dad visited just as often now as he had before Rachel's death, but it was different now. Now he looked at me, looked at Sara, but didn't _see_ us. He searched our faces for some trace of Rachel, his little girl, but she was gone, and we were still there.

It made sense, I guess, that he had loved Rachel the most. She was the oldest. He had spent the most time with her. She was the one that had enjoyed hiking and stuff with him.

It still kind of hurt.

“Want something to eat?” I asked to break the silence, needing to get out of the living room, get away from his stare, get away from the ghost of my big sister's presence.

I had loved Rachel. I still _did_ love Rachel. But I wasn't her, I'd never be her, and I just needed someone to see me as _me._

“That'd be great,” Dad said, “thanks.”

I nodded jerkily and got up, nearly falling as I did.

_Rachel never would have done that._

Or maybe she would have. How would I know? After all, I had barely known her. The general public only saw Rachel the Animorph, but I only saw Rachel the Sister. Maybe there were more sides to Rachel, sides I had never considered.

I headed into the kitchen. Sara had made cookies earlier. I piled a few on a plate, then went back into the living room, practically shoving the plate into Dad's hands.

“I need some air,” I told him, and ran out of there before he could say anything.

I called Jake.

“Jordan?” he said when he picked up, sounding puzzled. “What – ”

“You busy?” I interrupted.

Calling him was dumb. Jake couldn't stop thinking about Rachel for more than five minutes. If I wanted space, he was probably the worst person in the world to call.

But there I was, calling him.

I wouldn't get away from Rachel talking to him. But at least I'd be with someone that _had_ known her.

“No,” Jake said. “Why? Do you need to talk?”

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said, and I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. “Meet you in ten. Same place as always?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. We said our goodbyes, and I hung up, shoving my phone into my pocket. Squeezed my eyes shut, my hands into fists.

_Rachel, Rachel, Rachel._

She was _everywhere._

In the first question anyone asked me when they realized who I was, who my family was. In books and TV shows.

In Dad's eyes and Sara's smile and Mom's stubbornness. In Jake's tone.

According to everyone, in my face.

Everywhere.

Except for here. Except for with me.

I couldn't get away from her shadow, lingering around me, but I couldn't get close to _her._

My breathing was ragged, like I had been running. I opened and closed my fists repeatedly, trying to get it under control. Involuntary tears sprang to my eyes. Irrational. Uncontrollable.

It took a minute, but my breathing evened out. My fingers relaxed.

And I kept walking.

 


End file.
